Huge Aerial Database Update for Google Earth Thursday Night!

June 9, 2006

[21-JUN-2006: The aerial photos are now also available in Google Maps]Google made a HUGE update to the Google Earth satellite/aerial photos database late Thursday night June 8th (not yet available in Google Maps aerial database). There are now high resolution satellite photo data strips scattered all over the world where there were previously only lower resolution data. Now you will find strips of high resolution aerial photos for many towns, cities, and even rural areas in countries all over the world including Russia, China, Africa, Taiwan, USA, Canada, Bermuda, the Caribbean Islands, many islands in the Pacific, Puerto Rico, South America, New Zealand, Australia, etc., etc. Wow! It’s going to take time to absorb just how fantastic this is.
My favorite addition so far is the Caribbean islands – where they even include waters surrounding the islands so you can see sailboats at anchor (as a sailor of those areas it brought tears to my eyes!). The screenshot here is of St. Martin/Siint Maarten (two countries in one). Fly there now (or see it in Google Maps). Also, check out the Arecibo Radio Telescope (Google Maps) in Puerto Rico. Digg it!
A special thanks to ‘Cyclonic’ at the Google Earth Community who alerted me to the update. Cyclonic manages the database of airplanes in flight which often is responsible for discovering new database updates.
Related: Previous major update on April 18th.

About Frank Taylor

Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was released. He worked in 3D graphics for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank left in 2009 to circumnavigate the earth by sailboat as part of the Tahina Expedition.

i saw the update this morning, and it also includes my home town (in Vietnam) along with several other cities in Vietnam. however, only half of my home town is in high resolution (the half that my house isnt in):(

NOW they update Puerto Rico to show Arecibo better, after my article in Sky & Telescope was published.
Also, regarding that possible crater in Canada I also mentioned (noted in this blog a while back), someone said elsewhere online that it isn’t a crater, but a geological feature called a daipir. Still waiting for some “official” correspondence about it.

Here’s what I’ve found so far:
– Much of Israel and Lebanon
– Most all of Puerto Rico
– Most of the Caribrean islands
– Lots of Venezuela
– Lots more of Mexico
– Lots of Yemen
– Lots of the UAE including Dubai (check out the island communities along the coast!)
– Lots of Iran (including Tehran)
– Lots of Saudi Arabia (including Ryiad)
– Huge amounts on the horn of Africa (including Mugdisho)
– Much of the coast of western Africa
– I’d estimate about 20% of South America south of Brazil
– Most of the Marshall Islands
– Guam and the rest of the Marianna’s Islands
– Lots more of New Zealand (finally!) and Australia
– More of India
– Almost the entire coast from Rangoon, Burma around the India, across the northerm edge of the Indian Ocean into the Persian Gulf.
– Most of the islands in the central Indian Ocean (including a very cloud covered Diego Garcia)
– Most large cities in the eastern Indian Ocean archipelago
– Lots of strips all across Asia.
– More in both North and South Korea
– Expanded coverage in Japan (especially extending out from Tokyo)
– Almost all of the Nile River in Egypt is now covered
Not new (but I haven’t spent a lot of time looking):
– Doesn’t seem to be a lot new in North America – (though almost all of S California is there now)
– Doesn’t seem to be a lot new in Europe

What really irritates me though is that Google Earth doesn’t seem to care about fog and winter conditions. I tried to check out an area in the south-east of Sweden and although the reolution was higher, I couldn’t see a darn thing because of snow and fog. It was better with lower resolution and summer. Well waddya expect from a California company.

There’s a good side-by-side example of the difference, at the shipbreaking yards at Chittagong, Bangladesh. Wow, nice new resolutions. Wish there were a better way to tell the date a picture was taken.

The images for Wellington, New Zealand apppear to be very recent, probably in Jan/Feb of this year. The grass on various sports fields is looks pretty dry and the roadworks associated with a new motorway by-pass are well underway, all of which points to this year.

So just when were these images taken?
I looked up Palm Cove, Queensland Australia. The Sea Temple Resort & Spa. (16.45.01 70 S , 145.40.17.53 E ), built 2004, appears as a large area of cleared land.
Hardly the true meaning of ?updated? when the images are two years old! So how accurate would the premium subscription images be? Rip off, if they?re the same as these!

More @ higher resolution is always better.
Wonder about the contrast/brightness and color balance of the various new image strips. There are some huge variations.
Suggest some additional post-processing could be accomplished over the next few months.
I will post some expanded thoughts on the Keyhole forum.
R

I still do not understand something. When I first test-drove the Keyhole data — pre-acquisition, my house was at hjgh resolution. I could see which car was in the drive way and noticed a green/yellow tinge on the blacktop. My wife rememberd the kids writing with chalk in that spot once or twice. That same locale is very low resolution now. I’ll not post my street address here, but my PO Box is public: Lisbon, MD, 21765. Just to the south is very decent.

This is great! Lots and lots of new placemarks in Pakistan!!
Lahore is now in hi-res, many places around Lahore…
around Islamabad
some in Northern Areas
NWFP (south of Tirich Mir, Chitral down to Saidu Sharif, Swat)
Lots of places all around Sindh,
Lots of places around Balochistan and almost the whole Makran coast has been updated…

Wow, almost every important city in Brazil is there in high resolution. Fine… I love this program. Now I almost can travel from Belo Horizonte to Brasilia, From Brasilia to Uruana (State of Goiᳩ, From Belo Horizonte to Rio by Satellite!!! It’s amazing!

Some European Islands now have relativly high resolution:
Canary Islands (Spain)
Crete (Greece)
Rhodes (Greece)
Other improvments:
Geneva expands now out to the outskirts
Although Germany was updated a month or so ago, several improved high resolution images are now in and around the Frankfurt area.

looks like russian images for most rural parts of russia – siberia much worse than it used to be and some places masked and so bad that you cannot see anything. but funny part that old marked locations still marks something which now unrecognizable

Well finally a slice of Albania is Uncovered at Google Earth. Although I wish that they would take a high resolution of two and a half cities. One would be Pogradec, two would be Korce and the half city would be right in middle of those cities in which a small town called Zvirine exists. I want to see my house there and then spit at the pitifull inhabitants of it.

Well I actually wonder about something. How up to date are the images? Because some (like Dakar, Senegal) seem VERY outdated.
Anyway, really cool images of South Africa, Congo, Mali, etc. They really need to add administrative borders soon in Africa. And they should add secondary towns like Timbuktu (Mali), Lubumbashi (Congo) and Saint Louis (Senegal).

Now I can finally see my house \o/
Pity they haven’t updated the roads yet. Google Maps has excellent road coverage of Wellington NZ (even including my property boundries!), but they still haven’t updated the Google Earth DB with them.

Wow….thank to google.
You give a lot of important information to us here in Indonesia, especially who closed to Jogjakarta area that strike by eartquacke last month. But we still waiting your high res image of mounth Merapi (one of the most active volcano in the world, that on the highest alert level for almost 2 month, the longest in recorded history) and surrounding area to give more information/warning to the crowded villager (around 20-25 km from the mountain) about the volcano hazard in the near future (the volcanic activity change a lot the mountain face and direction of the main “lahar” hazard on the next rainy season)
We are hoping your next update will included those area (You must…..)
Rgds,
Tjahja S

Amsterdam is getting pretty good, was able to find the windmill “de Otter” but a lot of the Dutch countryside is still low res. Also Northern California foothills area is all still low res. (Yuba County)

How about the Azores? Nothing there….Seems like the program is pretty worthless unless you are only interested in big cities….. Whenever you want to check out interesting little places, there is nothing available. Good mapping and high resolution pictures is whats needed. I am planning on going to the Azores on vacation this year and wanted to see the layout of each island, but its all hype and no info.

The New Zealand imagery appears to have regressed in Google Earth. As little as a month ago I was looking at the apartments at the bottom of Onslow Road in Wellington. Now they’re gone. I think they’ve gone to Wellington City Council images ($$ ?) which are older. The subdivision above me doesn’t even exist yet, but a month ago it showed up.
(off to check Google Maps now)

Amazing pictures from my homeland Peru. This is what I was waiting for. I am a geologist and Google pictures were before only useful for limited reconaissance. Now my job is much more easier. I can have a much more detailed overview of several places I am reviewing.
Thanks Google!

The picture of where I live in Pleasant Prairie Wisconsin still shows the area where my townhome development as being just gravel covered roads. This area hasnt been like that since 2003. We need more updates in the US as well.

If anyone has access to the 1959 map done by George P. Murdock, and knowledge of KMZ, it could be a useful contrast to modern boundaries. It shows the hundreds of natural/tribal boundaries in Africa at that time.

Is the Philippines included in the said update? I know it will cost Google a lot of money to update 100% of the country to high resolution.
At least try to consider some of the major provinces like Cavite, Batangas, Laguna and Bataan.
These provinces are just a few Kilometers away from the Nation’s Capital (Manila).

To find out the date of a picture.
go to http://www.digitalglobe.com/
click on “image library”
zoom in to the area you want.
it will come up with a list of photo dates.
click in the check box to highlight the photo
and it will show you which photo you selected
and the date it was taken.

Google Earth is an amazing website because you can see the world in space view and se detailed places in a quick amount of time. I really am surprised on how detailed you are able to see the world. I can also see Italy very detailed and personaly i love looking at Italy because it is where i’m from…..it is also very good because this website offers differnt languages wich are very helpful if you speak other languages.

I’m addicted to google earth! This blog ain’t too bad either!
I sail too, and just die when I see all the fine places to go.
All: check out the crater on Mt. St Helens. New hi-res shot of the region gets you so close you can smell the sulfur–Yikes!

I know I’m not nuts, but I recall a layer showing the dates of the Google imagery, working much like the ZIP codes layer, where it outlies each section’s borders and tells the dates. Does anyone know where to find this feature, or if it’s documented somewhere as having been removed?

Thank You, tro the team at Google for making it possible to view this Earth in all its glory and wonders.
I look forward to your updates on the satellite imagery.Cloud formations are obscuring areas of interest.
Thank You again.
Best ever.

Thanks for the updates of Indonesia.. I appreciate it.. but I want to have more the latest updates for Indonesia.. New international aiport of Juanda in Surabaya is already operated, but not on Google Earth.. so would you mind to updating more new updates for Indonesia?
Thanks

I haven’t been on GE for a while, but it seems to have lost a lot of resolution. I live in L.A., where rez has always been high, and I used to be able to see myself standing in my back yard in the image they used. Now I can only tell it’s my house, even, from context. Everything else is fuzzy. I could understand if rez was being sacrificed in Encino to increase it in central Paris or at Machu Picchu. But it’s all fuzzier than before. Are they new selling the old rez and giving us less for free?

since We paid $400 we couldnt find any support from google
we couldn’t update the google, we didn’t find any contact to complain
the loading has become slower
we regret that we paid this money for nothing and we are going to tell every one we know unless you do something.

Hamid Yousif – you may need to check what map datum the UTM co-ords actually came from. Google is using the WGS datum and if your map is using something different, then then the two sets of co-ords may not match. If you are using a GPS, it is also possible to change settings in GPS from WGS to other mapping datums. One example, Australia moved from AGD 84 to GDA (WGS) mapping grids and the same set of co-ords are now roughly 200 m apart.

When is it anticipated that they will next update google earth? I can see that the picture is from April 27 2005, which is getting a bit old. I am looking to get some shots of my new property.
Regards
Chongy

well i dont know if google earth is updated because i checked my hometown in google earth and it found out that it was the same house,there’s a bunch of houses now in my place and in my neighbor but it didnta appear yet on google earth 4.3 and they say it was updated and they even put 2008..such a liar

1) Boracay Island is one of the most important tourist spots of our country. It is located NW off Aklan province in the island of Panay, in the central Visayas region of the Philippines. Tourists of different nationalities would appreciate finding their resorts in relation to other places while in Boracay. Pls update its imagery. 2) Also please update the imagery of the nearby cities of Roxas City and Kalibo City. 3) Wouldn’t be able to thank you enough if you did, GE guys.

I stay in Bangalore, India. I was born in a village near kadapa, Andhra Pradesh. the resolution of this place is still not perfect, and it is hazy and blurred even from 1km distance. The co-ordinates of this place is 14°35’33″N 79°18’41″E. I want to know when the map was updated? and if done recently, is it available.

I have seen pictures back in 2007 that were real time pictures and they were onlt there for a while then dissapeared. Why is this and now I look at things that have changed in the last 3 years and still the same view that was there 3 years ago

Seems like a lot of folks are tired of waiting for image updates…
But why wait? Make your own hi-res imagery. Get an image from a local government agency or fly over your place with a digital camera, then add the image as an overlay. The tools are free in GE, and let you size and position the image very accurately.
Note: if you do more than use it for yourself — like serve it from your own site as a KML file — you should be sure to have permission to use the image.

I don’t understand why they havn’t done a proper google earth night with high resolution city / street lights that you can zoom in on. That would be very cool and would be much easier to see where urban and rural areas are. In daytime its sometimes hard to tell the difference.

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